


Nobody knew

by sloganeer



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 00:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11703396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sloganeer/pseuds/sloganeer
Summary: Eduardo is convinced everyone at Harvard knew he was in love with Mark.





	Nobody knew

**Author's Note:**

> A few bits I wrote then which I pieced together into a story now.

Eduardo is convinced everyone at Harvard knew he was in love with Mark. He felt so obvious, like it was written above his head in neon lights. He's sure that everyone knew, not just Chris and Dustin and Billy, who saw them together every day, but the guy who sat next to Eduardo in Econ and saw him grin every time he got a text, and the girl who worked the bar when Eduardo left Mark at their table to buy another round. 

It was okay that he and Mark never talked about it because Mark obviously didn't like him back, and Eduardo appreciated that Mark would rather be best friends than have to let him down easy. Until the dilution happens and hurts so much more because Mark knows how Eduardo feels about him, and he could still do this.

Except, of course, nobody knew.

-

Five years later, Wardo's in town and having dinner with Dustin and his wife, Chris and his husband. Wardo's still single, still living all over the world. Maybe he's in Switzerland now, or Australia. Chris finally asks, because they're talking around Mark, and Dustin laments how the two of them are still single, not at all implying they should be together, just that the group is lopsided. 

Chris finally asks. “Are you seeing anyone?”

It all comes out then, over the dinner table, and it's awful. Dustin had no idea, Chris couldn't tell for sure, and suddenly, almost a decade later, Eduardo realizes that this wasn't about a crush that Mark couldn't handle. He realizes that maybe they could have had something. 

“Can still have something,” Dustin insists, because he's the softie of the group. He wants everyone to be as happy as he is. He thinks Mark was in love with Eduardo, too, but they were all too stupid to realize it. 

“Still in love, Wardo. Every moment he spends away from his computer, he's miserable. Even nights we invade his living room and drink beer and play Grand Theft Auto until dawn, he's not happy. We don't know how to make him happy,” Dustin says. “That was always you.”

And Eduardo isn't happy either. He's on the other side of the world with no one, no real friends. The best time of his year are the few times he gets to fly back to California and see Dustin and Chris and the significant others. 

Back to California, he thinks, like this was ever home. It never has been, always just a stop. But an important one. Maybe the most important. 

So, instead of taking a cab back to the hotel, Wardo gives the driver Mark's address. And he knocks on the door. And Mark opens it, bare feet, boxers, and a hoodie zipped up over his bare chest. He was asleep, but probably on the couch. His mouth is turned down. 

Wardo doesn't even say hello. “I was in love with you,” he says. 

Mark's eyes go wide, just for a second, less than, and if Wardo wasn't looking, he probably wouldn't have noticed. 

“At Harvard. I wanted you so much I thought it was spilling out of me. I thought everyone knew. I thought you knew. But you never said anything, so I figured that was just your Mark way of telling me you didn't feel the same way.”

Mark opens the door all the way now, steps back, and Wardo comes inside. 

“But that wasn't right,” he says. “You didn't know. You never knew.”

“I didn't know,” Mark tells him. He almost sounds scared. Mark's voice breaks, right at the end there. 

Wardo breaks, too. “How did we do this to each other?”

“I’m the best at everything,” Mark says, and he almost laughs. “Even fucking up.”


End file.
